19 May 2024 - Grandson's Baseball, Pizzi's Arrive, It's a Small World!!

 

Beautiful day at the Elkhart Campground today.  The Alliance coaches continued to roll in for the Rally.  The campground is getting full of Alliance Valor's, Paradigm's, Delta's and Avenue's!  This morning we headed into Meijer and restocked the fridge and pantry a bit.  When we returned, Doreen used her Instant Pot and cooked Liberty some chicken ahead for the next couple weeks.  

Our Ankeny grandson's Daniel Jr and Calvin had baseball tournaments all weekend so we used the Game Changer app and tuned into live feeds of their games.  We had some games that went into extra innings, and overall the boys did really great!  

Daniel's team, the Iowa Prospects Blue 13U

Daniel and his tournament ring (they don't use trophies any more)

Daniel's team went undefeated throughout the weekend (7-6, 7-2, 7-6, 12-11) winning the tournament.  Daniel batted 0.667 with 8 hits including singles, doubles and triples.  He is a very versatile player so he saw time at shortstop, catcher and pitcher.  On the mound he faced 26 batters striking out 7.  

Calvin and his Ankeny Titans 11U team

He is front row left as you look at the picture

Calvin's team had a great weekend also losing their first game, winning the next two games both 11-7 and tying the last game 10-10 in extra innings.  Overall Calvin batted 0.643 with 9 hits, 9 RBI's with 14 at bats. One of his double's was just 4 feet short of going over the fence!   He is a solid catcher, pitcher and about any other position he is assigned!

Although we could not watch our grand daughter Lindsey, they played a volleyball tournament in Grand Rapids MI this weekend.  We hope to see Lindsey, Lucas, Jennifer and James on Wednesday evening for dinner! 

We are so thankful for technology that allows us to stay connected with our kids and grandkids as we travel.

This afternoon Mike and Donna Pizzi, our Alliance friends from Murrell's Inlet South Carolina arrived here in the campground.  They were unable to attend last year's rally so it is great to see them back!  Tomorrow more friends arrive.  It is like a big family reunion!

So Doreen was sitting with Mike and Donna Pizzi catching up with them a bit and I headed over to the dumpster to deposit a bag of trash.  While I was gone, a lady we had seen running the streets of the campground stopped by and asked if I had served in the Iowa Air National Guard! Doreen responded "yes he did!" and so when  I returned I quickly recognized a Soldier I had worked with in Iowa and run with back in my running days, COL Monica Hock Radke!  Wow, I had not seen her since probably 2013. I recognized her right away!  She served in the Army Reserve in Des Moines when I was State Command Chief of the Iowa Air National Guard.  As the State Senior Enlisted, we reached out to all of the branches of the military.  Monica moved to the Washington DC area to serve a tour there and I retired in 2015, so we had lost connection a bit.  She was here in the Elkhart area getting her RV repaired!  What a small world!